PhilipTheBucket

Yeah, okay. So kill them to the last soldier. Then they'll stop. Sounds pretty straightforward. They can always change their mind about what they "will not stop" until they accomplish.

Like I said, your mask of Marxism is slipping and showing the Russian cheerleader beneath. I think you should go back to some pretense of "practicality" about the conflict, and how unfortunate it is that this whole situation spiraled out of control, and of course you don't want killing or justification for same.

Solved. Completely fucking solved lol.

Also, Russia wants peace in Ukraine, but the US won't let them.

I'm working on finding a channel that was posting absolutely hilarious little cartoon vignettes from Ukraine about the war. My new strategy when someone is spending an absolutely endless amount of time and energy arguing some totally ridiculous thing to me, is instead of just trading barbs with them forever, to post to some productive location something opposite to their point of view that will get more attention. Thus the impact of everything they said in their comments on the overall consensus hivemind is negated and then some, and I don't have to spend unlimited amounts of typing time.

So if Ukrainians do not want to continue, and Russians are making gains, then you want them to continue to fight a war they aren’t in support of so you can gain? If I’m supposedly a Russian cheerleader, are you just getting off on Ukrainians dying in a war they don’t want to fight?

Actually, this part I should give some kind of genuine response to. Maybe. I don't think you deserve it, but whatever, at least to clarify my own position on it:

Obviously I want peace, as do the Ukrainians, as should any Russia conscripts who are sometimes equally victimized by the whole situation. The reason I'm reacting with derision to this idea of blaming the US or anyone other than the Russians for Russia invading Ukraine and killing all those people is that at the end of the day, they're ones who invaded Ukraine and killed all those people.

They could go home tomorrow. Since they're not doing that, but instead hanging around on Ukrainian land and blowing up Ukrainians, is the only reason I say the path to real security is to keep blowing them up instead. Again, if someone comes into your house and is killing family members, it ceases to be relevant why they feel they had a good reason for it, or how they were provoked, or whether or not you apparently squandered your chance to make peace with them before they decided they had to do that, or anything else. What matters is to defend yourself. I don't think Ukraine squandered any chance for peace in that fashion, I think Russia is lying about how much they want peace. Why do I think that? Because they're on Ukrainian land, killing Ukrainians.

Them violating the terms of their own cease-fire more or less immediately is a pretty strong demonstration of that. To me. The fact that Ukrainians obviously "don't want to fight," which is accurate, they'd rather not be in the war, doesn't mean they're not on board for defending themselves against a hostile power which is blowing up their country. They seem far more on board for that than the rest of the West as a whole seems on board for supporting them in it.

Which hospital did Ukraine blow up?

The other part, let me phrase as a question: Would you describe attacking energy infrastructure the same day you agreed to a cease-fire on each other's energy infrastructure as "sabotage" of the peace deal? Why or why not?

Which modern socialist state should be the model, if the USSR is

The Soviets already solved famine and Imperialism, they fought against Imperialism and ended famine.

Dude. Fucking never mind lol. I'm posting this to meanwhileongrad and moving on with my day. You can answer my direct questions above, or not, up to you.

The biggest factor is that most Ukrainians do not want to continue the war

Absolutely correct

the US is beginning to pull out what little support there was

Absolutely correct

as Russia steadily makes territory gains

Any day now lol. Since 2014, they've progressed 200 km inside the border. At that rate, they'll be in Kyiv by the year 2069, and they'll manage to reach the western border around the year 2100. Those territory gains sure add up, boy howdy.

Progress in this kind of thing isn't linear, obviously a manpower collapse on the Ukrainian side or an explicit team-switch by the US would be catastrophic. But trumpeting "territory gains" as the measure of Russia's progress just highlights how you're trying to cheerlead for them while pretending to be "objective" and "leftist."

Like I said, this whole conversation is stupid. You are not a leftist. You are a Russian cheerleader wrapping up your propaganda in a thin veneer of wise practicality and "dialectic" mumbo-jumbo.

If blowing up hospitals is wrong, then you’re also anti-Ukraine, I guess. The however wasn’t a justification, but pointing that both Ukraine and Russia have targeted civilian infrastructure, so you should be against both, and in favor of a peace deal, like I have been saying from the start.

Which hospital did Ukraine blow up? You know what, I don't care. Ukraine wasn't even allowed to strike inside Russia until five minutes ago relatively speaking.

If you don’t want to know what Marxists think, why start this convo in the first place?

Lol you're not a Marxist. You're making excuses for gangster capitalism and playing "both sides have been fighting you know" when the whole goddamned war is happening inside Ukraine's house. I don't actually believe they blew up any hospitals, but even entertaining that conversation is silly.

Okay, actually, let's do this: Tell me why it doesn't count that Russia blew up a bunch of stuff they specifically peace-agreed that they wouldn't blow up, like just now within the last few days. Tell me which hospitals Ukraine blew up. Let's start just with those two things.

Why is the USSR the model to emulate, when the USSR couldn't keep itself together and collapsed into gangster capitalism. Why is that the model to emulate? What should future USSR-aspirer states do differently to avoid suffering the same fate, while they are solving famine and imperialism?

it’s clear the war is wrapping up

What? Why is that clear? Russia bombed a whole fresh wave of power stations right after the "cease fire," and they've expressed interest in conscripting 140,000 more troops.

I think the likeliest outcome of the war is a partition roughly along the 2014 lines, which are basically the same as the current front lines. I see no particular reason to think that outcome is definitely close at hand though. It might be, or it might not be.

The difference with Palestine is that Palestinians are being genocided by an Imperialist entity.

...

Russia is interested in a demillitarized Ukraine

Well, they sure fucked that up. The chance of Ukraine or anyone else on Russia's border being comfortable with demilitarization has now entered negative territory, and any of them that can get their hands on nuclear weapons will be acquiring them.

the US and UK seem to want that to happen when they sabotage peace talks

If someone comes to your house, shoots your dog, and then says they'd like to open peace talks, while punching your daughter in the face repeatedly, not stopping while talking about peace talks, it's okay to hit them with a bat. Even if they say that's a "red line" for them. They don't get to claim they were provoked into doing it by some third party. You don't get to blame someone else for "sabotaging peace talks." These are not complex issues, any more than Palestine is a complex issue. There's some history there, sure. You could talk about where the conflict came from, and various instances of attacks on civilians by Palestinians, if you wanted to. But only some kind of disgusting quisling or deeply mistaken person would want to. Right is right. Wrong is wrong.

Besides, your talking points are a little out of date. Russia just recently sabotaged peace talks by continuing to attack Ukraine in ways they agreed they wouldn't, after coming to an agreement in peace talks. That's what sabotaging peace talks looks like. Are you not aware that that's happening?

Bombing hospitals isn’t okay, period. However

I just lost any desire to be in this conversation. I don't care what comes after "however." If you need to follow that up with "however," you're wrong.

Blowing up people is wrong. Invading other nations and lying about it is wrong. Sabotaging peace talks by continuing to attack is wrong. These are not complicated issues.

I thought originally that you were sincere, just confused, but it's hard for me to believe that anyone actually believes the things you're saying. I don't know why you are professing this viewpoint and I do not care.

I do feel like I was smug and insulting out of the gate for more or less no reason. But also, I feel like demanding that I have to come in super respectful and kind, so they can respond in their famous chosen fashion, is laughable. I'm just speaking to them in the language that they clearly are approving of, just from the other side. That's fair, to me.

Basically, thinking someone is wrong, and telling them so and telling them why, is not "bad faith." Not in any world. Again this is the Hexbear no-true-scotsman thing, where they're super open and everyone is welcome except obvious awful horrible liberals who need to be attacked at every turn because they deserve it, and anyone who disagrees with them in any way is obviously that. This is why I tend to talk badly about Hexbear: Because they feel comfortable talking badly about everyone else, and hurling abuse and trolling at anyone and everyone, so fuck 'em. If they don't want to be treated like that, they can open a conversation about the value of the social contract, and we can talk, but otherwise, oh well.

Edit: The person edited their response, abandoning the debate I guess being unhappy with the nature of it. Seems reasonable, they're not obligated to talk if they don't want to. Maybe if I'd sent them a picture of a pig ballsack, they would have been receptive and felt comfortable with how appropriate the whole conversation was.

for Ukraine, there is no path beyond suing for peace

Incorrect. Winning the war, bloodying Russia's nose and teaching it to stay the fuck inside its borders whenever it starts to feel that its interests demand that it needs to blow up some apartment buildings and power stations, is the path. That sounds like a good solution to me. This kind of thing, and the solution, needs to happen from time to time. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Palestine. It's not a morally ambiguous situation. Get them to go the fuck home, by force since they are coming with force, and if they're uncomfortable in the future with the state of the world and they feel threatened, they can cope with it in some manner that isn't a war crime and doesn't involve any unrelated civilians. Also, snatch Putin and put him in the Hague next to Netanyahu. Or maybe just put them on the streets of Kyiv and Jenin respectively and let the people more directly involved have dealings with him. That sounds like a great start for making the world a better place. It's a lot less ambiguous in its impacts than would be simply doing away with the US's power on the world stage.

The process of exacting that path is not exactly going great, of course because despite your protestations about how happy the US government is have this conflict, they barely seem to care about supporting Ukraine except every so often when it appears to be on the point of total collapse. But also, Russia isn't exactly winning either.

Again, I simply don't understand why you are morally clear on the moral clarity of the Palestine situation, but then all of a sudden say that it is not "practical" to discuss the clear morality of the situation in Ukraine.

In the grand scheme of things, Russia is absolutely moving against the US Empire, and the US Empire is a bigger obstacle for Socialism and the Global South. This means some actions Russia takes are good for the Global South, though only for its own interests.

Not really lol. Well... actually, Russia's sum total impact on the US empire has been significant, but not because they're killing Ukrainians. Their conduct in the war has been abysmal. They're succeeding beyond Bill Donovan's wildest dreams at fucking up our elections and reducing our abilities on the world stage. Personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that anything that comes out of that will produce a benefit for the Global South. We are not the only hegemon, and hegemony will not go away because of the collapse of the US. The question is whether what comes after will be better or worse.

You appear to be more of a stalker than anything else, to be honest.

I was curious about some of the things you were saying, and whether you change your arguments depending on who you're talking to, so I looked up "palestine" and "russia" in a search limited to you as creator. I didn't really find what I was looking for, but I did find that you spin your arguments extremely hard in one direction, talking about "practicality" and the need to be realistic when talking about Ukraine beating Russia. But, for some reason, when we're talking about Palestine surviving against Israel (or, for that matter, who's going to win the US election and what the impact will be) it's suddenly not necessary to be practical or "objective" or anything, and we can just talk about clear morality and what the justice outcome is. I think that as someone who clearly supports the right of ordinary people to be free from oppression, because you're obviously a leftist and would obviously support that, it's a curious reluctance to weigh in on the justice of a situation where a gangster-capitalist state is blowing up ordinary men, women, and children by the truckload for no other reason than that they want to keep their options open and feel comfortable geopolitically. That was often why the US did the same thing during most of the late 20th century, and it was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Easy question: Is it moral for Russia to blow up a hospital? Is it moral for Israel to? Presumably you have simple straight answers to both. That's just the kind of thing I was curious about. I'm not trying to "debate pervert" you in Hexbear's self-serving terminology, but I have become sick of people making dissembling excuses for mass murder on my federated social network and decided today to be vocal in talking to one of them and calling him out for it. Hope that's okay.

You made excuses for Russia's interests to "maintain a buffer," i.e. slaughter the citizens of another sovereign nation until Putin and the Russian people can feel comfortable again: https://lemmy.ml/comment/16907792

When it's Russia, you say:

I don’t see what discussing the morality of the invasion will practically solve

https://lemmy.ml/comment/16903455

When it's Palestine, you say:

Again, your moral equivalence results in standing back and watching Palestine be erased from the map. Equal condemnation for unequal evils minimizes the worse and raises the lesser evil.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/15521966

May the people of Palestine, Lebanon, and the surrounding areas stay safe from the genocidal US Empire and its vassal Israel. Death to the American Empire, may the world be free from the US State, and may Israel’s project of settler-colonial genocide come to an end.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/13867216

You also said that support for Russia was a necessary part of support for progressing humanity by undoing the US:

critical support for Russia is due to it currently working against US dominance, which is the primary obstacle for Humanity to progress economically into a more equitable global system.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/17512137

You also credited the USSR with "ending famines" lol.

You are not internally consistent. You are not a leftist, although you sometimes retreat into some kind of dialectical complication which is left-adjacent when challenged. You seem to be in love with genocidal capitalist states as long as they're on your team... but they're not going to save a place for you at the table. Your hopeful support for them will gain you nothing. You seem like you're sincere, to some extent, and I like your support for the Palestinians. Maybe someday you will start to be willing to apply the same yearning for freedom to people who are being oppressed by your friends, also, not just by your enemies.

Lol if you're not a leftist just say so.

"Russia is clearly a hypercapitalist state at this point, and exporting misery to the helpless people all around them"

"Well you're not wrong but it's complicated"

No it isn't. The first thing is a complete argument and a good reason to oppose them, however you feel about NATO or the US State Department. Sending weapons to a resistance movement against their organized state oppression is clearly a wonderful thing, and I wish Ukraine everything they need in order to defend themselves against anyone who is trying to kill their citizens. It's not more complex than that.

If you feel like making excuses for Russia, or saying it "needs to be analyzed" or they're a useful bulwark against even worse forces and so we don't need to look too closely at their crimes (and where have I heard that logic before), then fine. Just don't put on a mantle of socialism while you are doing so.

Some Hexbear people were talking excitedly about advocating for Claudia de la Cruz. I pointed out that if Trump wins, they might go into concentration camps (And look! That is happening, some prominent leftists have already been disappeared).

A tide of people pretended that I had said I would be happy about leftists going into concentration camps (I am not), sent me pig ballsacks, threatened me with death, threatened me with being stabbed with an icepick, sent me insults, agreed with each other about what a piece of shit I was, sent me custom-crafted memes to emphasize how much they didn't care what I thought, and one person seemed like they wanted to have a factual conversation about it (they made some accusations about what reality was that were at least subject enough to proof or disproof to be worth discussing). I decided to try talking about it a little and it went about like you would think.

I'm clearly not a bigot, racist, or et cetera any of those things. Hexbear operates under a sort of "no true scotsman" logic by which anyone who they disagree with is automatically one or all of those things, and so it's okay to be horrible to anyone they disagree with. Again, that's why they are widely defederated.

Here's the thread, including both my unwarranted smugness and Hexbear's predictable reaction which has nothing to do with anti-bigotry (and, in fact, has played some small role in enabling the worsening of bigotry and genocide, now that Trump is in office): https://ponder.cat/post/525489/763331

“It’s inappropriate.”

"To pray?”

“There’s an appropriate time.”

“It is the appropriate time.”

“No, you have to listen to your authorities, which is your pastor.”

Jesus Christ.